With the slow point of fest, I will be doing some much needed repairs. While out in Grand Haven my spikey ball (Blue Eyed Betty) took on some serious abuse from mother nature on the third day with 20plus winds. She had part of her mouth ripped open. Also my banners need some minor seam repairs. Of course not to mention my unfinished projects from the last two years of MAKR.

To be honest with you James once you start to sew, there is ALWAYS a project or two waiting in the wings to be done or repaired.

Great to hear your going to pick it up Jeff! I find that it gives me the ability to do something without having to strain my brain too much, depending on the project or part. kind of like my father in law says, mesure twice so you can cut once.. theres been many times where ive had to cut and recut a couple times. the only thing I would say to someone new is its like anything else, dont let it frustrate you to the point of not coming back.

Frodos - Isnt that the truth! There is always one or seven things in the hopper to do! and it drives the wife nuts.

Lynn just started a new project. She saw the blue and white "lattice work" Rev, that someone made for Ben, at Kite Party 5 in 2007, and has wanted to make one ever since. Well, it finally got the best of her, and she started on it a couple of days ago.

This one will be, you guessed it, red white and blue. The center will be like the vented kites we fly so much, blue with five white stars, the sails will be red and white lattice work.

I tried just leaving them in the Rev kite travel sleeve ... had to pull them out each time to put them back in at the same time as the kite. It was a little like learning to use chop sticks ... they were all over the place if you weren't careful ... plus I seem to be paranoid about loosing one of them in the grass. Tried using velco to hold them in a bundle ... that worked some what.

Since my wife bought a new monograming machine last year, I made some mini-travel sleeves that hold the five rods ... they are 2" wide by the length of the middle leading edge rod. Copied the style of the Rev travel sleeve for closure. And yes, we did experiment with the monograming and there is a "2" on one mini-travel sleeve and a "3" on the other mini-travel sleeve. They actually work quite well since they are made out of nylon and are very slippery. I leave both of them in the Rev travel sleeve and can easily slide the kite in without snagging it. It was good practice in setting up the sewing machine to sew nylon and learning to hot cut nylon.

Jim Foster wrote:Lynn just started a new project. She saw the blue and white "lattice work" Rev, that someone made for Ben, at Kite Party 5 in 2007, and has wanted to make one ever since. Well, it finally got the best of her, and she started on it a couple of days ago.

This one will be, you guessed it, red white and blue. The center will be like the vented kites we fly so much, blue with five white stars, the sails will be red and white lattice work.

Lynn and I both fell in love with the way Ben's kite flies.

That sounds really cool! Tell her to finish it in time for me to fly it at Berkeley

Jeepster wrote:If they have a second set of rods, what do most folks do with them?

I made a roll-up bag that has a slot for each type of rod. All the extra 3-wraps are in one slot, all the 2-wraps in another, etc. I don't have an even number complete sets of each, so there might be 7 3 wraps in the 3-wraps slot for example.

Lynn and I each have a bag that carries two sets of lines (75' and 120') three Revs, SUL, 1.5 full sail and 1.5 vented. Lynn made us each a small sleeve that holds one set of two wrap spars to be used as needed in the vented 1.5s. It lives in the kite bag.

We also have a small storage bag that hangs from our belt that carries our handles, one set of lines (100') and has room to stow our stake and sheath, which when flying is on our belt. After setting up the kite, we put the winder and the kite sleeve in the storage bag on our belt.

The belt loop on the small storage bag fits onto a small carabiner attached to the top end of the kite bag. So everything we need is inside one kite bag.

With this bag over our shoulder, we can spend the whole afternoon flying in all wind conditions.

As Lynn is finding, it is a very difficult kite to make. There are 31 separate pieces, not counting the stars applique. The way she is doing it, each piece will have a folded edge and one continous seam on each side. Each side of the sail must have the edges of fifteen pieces double folded and all pieces woven together before the first stitch.

There is no added edge trim planned. Therefore, everything must be done in a certain order to have a "finished" look. All sections should end up the same width, unlike Ben's where the end sections appear narrower. And, she wants it to look just as nice from the back.

Very cool ! As my collection grows I've been thinking of cooking up a bag of some kind.
After saturday I have a few repairs on the bol I made.
Seams pulled on some patches- should start doing the patches in strange colors and it will end up looking like FUGU. hehe